The Angel Gabriella

Gabriella is from Puglia, you know, the pointy-heel bit of Italy. There are quite a few Italians aound Leros; it was built by Italians after all. As well as being an avant-garde artist. she makes all her own pasta in her small resturant here in Lakki. And it is delicious. I had ravioli, which was just one large one. It filled the dish - rather like a big soft fluffy pillow of joy, with a delicious, perfectly-seasoned meaty filling . Not only is Gabriella's Italian fare delicious, but she also has a great selection of Italian red wines with which to wash it down. We had dined there last November with Money Penny and Infinite Blue - a sort of end-of-flotilla meal.

Garbriella (second left)

Now the crew of Missy Bear, along with our good old friend Tony, were back for a start of flotilla Italian feast. There was only one other couple (chatty Americans) and one small 10 year-old child.

Tony asked Gabriella what her young daughter was called. She’s my son, she replied. To be fair to Tony, the son is very pretty, and very dark skinned – definitely mixed-race. I suspect her father could have been from Mauritius, as Gabriella had run a hotel there in a previous life. It was on the south of the island, and it took hours to drive there by 4x4, and it was very exclusive.

Gabriella is pretty too, with long brown hair and sparkling eyes, but has a well-lived-in complexion, probably due to a lot of sun.

She says that her son is unhappy. He’s the only dark-skinned child in the school – probably on the island I would imagine. And children will be children I suppose. He gets a lot of teasing. You could cry for him.

Although Greek islanders have a rich cultural background, it is not very diverse skin-colour-wise. They are also fiercely patriotic. Which is why the Leros islanders have had to be particularly tolerant - since about 2015 - when the boat people started arriving. From Iraq, from Afghanistan. Then from Syria and Palestine. And now from Africa.

When we sailed into Lakki on a bare-boat charter in 2015, the beaches showed signs of the flotsam and jetsam from the traffickers' inflatables that made it here from the nearby Turkish coast. The bars and tavernas on the sea-front were packed with mostly young, darker-skinned males, all dressed in dark-clothes and leather jackets. All staring at their mobile phones and guarding one bottle of water, or a single coffee, seemingly for hours.

The local business owners were not too impressed, because they were not making any money. And the tourists tended to walk on by.

The immigrants were on the next stage of their epic Exodus towards western Europe, hopefully for a better life. They were rounded-up each night and kept in an old school building, I think. There were coils of barbed-wire atop the perimeter wall. One night at about 03:00, they were herded out of the building and onto the big ferry to be ‘processed’ in Athens.

Now nine years later, there is a purpose-built immigrant camp built on the hill on the opposite side of the bay to the town. It is like an open prison, with buildings like shipping containers. It has capacity for a thousand immigrants. There are about 200 there now. The majority are from Palestine (pre-dating October 7). I think that the ‘in-mates’ get fed, and some clothing. The camp lights up like Disneyland each night with perimeter flood-lighting.

During summer, the residents (now including more women and a few children) are not allowed out into town much, so as not to upset the tourists. But in winter, this curfew is lifted and you can again see groups of young Asian men milling around the front, and black African women heading into the local bargain store.

Although Gabriella’s son is now not the only non-white on the island, it’s not the perfect circumstance for this to have happened. I hope he has the inner strength and courage of his mother, who has clearly been ingenious enough to carve out businesses on islands off two different continents.  If you are ever in Lakki, definitely eat at 'Al Fico d'India da Gabriella' and say hello from 'Missy Bear'.